Advantages of Marriage

by Steve Ray on December 12, 2005

This weekend's edition of Zenit had an interesting article entitled Making Room for Same-Sex Marriages. In it, one of Britain's most senior former judges, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss commented that the advantages of marriage were now "not sufficiently trumpeted."

What are the advantages of marriage? Zenit continued:

“Some of these advantages [of marriage] were highlighted in a study by two economists. The Christian Science Monitor on Monday reported on the research by David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and Andrew Oswald, from Warwick University in Coventry, England. The two looked at what makes people happy.

“Their study was published in a paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Massachusetts-based private research organization. . . . "Money buys some degree of happiness, but not a lot," said Blanchflower.

“A far bigger contributor to happiness is marriage. A spouse provides as much extra happiness as $100,000 in new income, reckoned Blanchflower.

“Moreover, they discovered that those in a monogamous, faithful marriage are the happiest. Those who cheat on their spouses are less happy. Those who have ever paid for sex are much less happy than others. And so are those who divorce.”

Living in obedience to Christ in the heart of his Church always rises to the top as the answer to life's concerns. People want to be happy! But too often people go in the wrong direction in their search. Happiness begins with God and ends with God. We achieve happiness by living in obedience to him and his Laws.

By the way, the picture of the hands above are the hands on Janet and I on our wedding day.